Archived Transcend Beauty (Cosmetics remodel!!)

[Formina Sage]

Anybody hear about this? This week 20-ish stores are piloting a new beauty fixtures set! The universal fixtures (small shelves, dividers, pushers, all the various cubes) are all going away, gondolas being stripped to bare, and a new fixture system is being set! The planograms are updated to be merchandised in 1 foot sections as opposed to 4 foot sections. For each 4 feet, there are four 1-foot panels that are placed on crossbars on the gondola. These have numbered mini notches on each side and shelves are now 1x1 foot preassembled units (yes, dividers, pushers, and cubes are premade!). For each 1-foot column, there is basically a big box with every necessary shelf that the planogram requires and you set just by looking at your column and seeing which numbered notch the shelf goes into. Setting is just grabbing the box for Neutrogena Column 1, working your way up the pog and setting shelves in the correct notches, then grabbing the box for Column 2, placing shelves, boom. Coolest part? The shelf brackets are electrical contacts and the notches in each 1-foot column are an electrical supply. There are LED lights built into the shelves and when they are inserted into the column, they light up! Signholders are also pre-fabbed units that are lit. I'm support help in a store that is setting this and I'll try and grab some pictures tomorrow!

 

[Retail Girl]

Drat....as soon as I saw "electrical contacts" I was hoping that it would shock the guest if they put back something in the wrong place.

But seriously....this sounds pretty cool! Can't wait to see pictures!

 

[ptl]

Best. Idea. Ever.

Assuming the idea of no longer wasting our time selling cosmetics is off the table, of course.

 

[stupid rules]

Is this the new style they are going to use in Canada? I know there's changes but I forget what exactly.

 

[commiecorvus]

Hmmm.
This sounds almost too good to be true.
Cosmetics has always been the bane of my existence so this might be awesome but I'm going to wait and see.

 

[kingpin003]

My store is in process right now. 🙂

 

[redeye58]

Oooooh!
Post pix when & if you can!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Oooooh!
Post pix when & if you can!

Wow! Need pics, please!

 

[ISMQUEEN]

i am so excited to see some pics, and im hoping that this will roll out to other stores!

 

[kingpin003]

Pics will be coming later because I don't want to give away location. I was going to write a whole bunch here trying to explain everything at once, but maybe I should take questions and answer them that way. Anyone want to know anything about appearance, setup, process, anything else?

 

[Pettjm54]

Pics will be coming later because I don't want to give away location. I was going to write a whole bunch here trying to explain everything at once, but maybe I should take questions and answer them that way. Anyone want to know anything about appearance, setup, process, anything else?

Is this only a pilot?? Or is this chain wide? I'm the cosmetics TL so I am very interested

 

[Ajax11]

20 store pilot. There is a pic of a single aisle up on sharepoint that looks pretty cool.

 

[kingpin003]

Looky what we have here!
😀

 

[commiecorvus]

Very innnteresting.
The lack of bullnoses is cool all by itself and I'm really interested to see how the shelving works.
If we get the pushers in one piece or are going to still have to deal with dozens of tiny pieces that we wind up not having enough of one or the other.
It looks simpler so I have hope.
Wondering how long it will be till it hits all the stores.

Thanks kingpin.
Much appreciated.

 

[redeye58]

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Cleaner lines & better-defined spaces give it a real good look.
Wonder how it holds up.
Thanx, KP.

 

[kingpin003]

The pushers are all one piece and come assembled on the shelves.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Great job, king!

 

[Darikona]

This is awesome, I seriously hope it comes to my store soon. Assuming it passes the testing.

 

[kingpin003]

Darikona, spot is very confident that it will. We were instructed to toss all of our old cosmetics shelves and fixtures. We have nothing left. We couldn't go back if we wanted to.

 

[ptl]

This is probably intended to test the back-end stuff (e.g., the logistics of getting it prepped and shipped to stores) and the time-to-set requirements, rather than a feasibility test of the fixtures themselves. I can't imagine they'd spend the money to develop something that elaborate and new if they hadn't already decided it was the direction they were going to go. Or rather, if they WERE doing an initial feasibility test, it would be in one or two stores, not twenty. They wouldn't gain anything from testing in twenty stores instead of two, so why spend the money to make ten times as many pieces?

So yeah, I'd expect that to roll out company-wide pretty soon. Almost sad I missed it. (But not quite. 😉)

 

[Darikona]

This is probably intended to test the back-end stuff (e.g., the logistics of getting it prepped and shipped to stores) and the time-to-set requirements, rather than a feasibility test of the fixtures themselves. I can't imagine they'd spend the money to develop something that elaborate and new if they hadn't already decided it was the direction they were going to go. Or rather, if they WERE doing an initial feasibility test, it would be in one or two stores, not twenty. They wouldn't gain anything from testing in twenty stores instead of two, so why spend the money to make ten times as many pieces?

So yeah, I'd expect that to roll out company-wide pretty soon. Almost sad I missed it. (But not quite. 😉)

yes and no. Testing can take several different parameters though if someone was taking a basic stats the more tests subjects, the better. The more stores they can pilot this and see the long term repercussions and costs the better they can gauge on longevity and viability of the concept. How easy are they to break, how much will the company be paying for replacements? Do they at least last x months before needing to be replaced because of bad contacts, poor wiring, etc? I don't doubt this will still go through as Target looks to still be pushing hard into the beauty market. It's one of the few industries that is growing steadily and healthily.

 

[ptl]

yes and no. Testing can take several different parameters though if someone was taking a basic stats the more tests subjects, the better. The more stores they can pilot this and see the long term repercussions and costs the better they can gauge on longevity and viability of the concept. How easy are they to break, how much will the company be paying for replacements? Do they at least last x months before needing to be replaced because of bad contacts, poor wiring, etc? I don't doubt this will still go through as Target looks to still be pushing hard into the beauty market. It's one of the few industries that is growing steadily and healthily.

Well, yes, of course there would be better information from more subjects--but I'd suggest the gains would be marginal in this particular situation. Test in a medium-low volume store and in a high-ultra volume store, figure the wear-and-tear results will be somewhere toward the middle on average. The vendor will surely be providing a warranty for wiring/reliability issues and the like, so as long as those terms and the price are agreeable... you're good to do.

(And, to be fair, I base this at least in part on my experience that Target, at least for the years I was there, didn't really seem all that interested in doing longevity/durability testing. We spent thousands of dollars buying new lighting systems for the coolers/freezers, for example, that had to have more than half of the lamps replaced within a year. We stick with the crappy zone-free fixtures that break constantly when there are higher-strength systems readily available, etc. etc. )

 

[Darikona]

Well, yes, of course there would be better information from more subjects--but I'd suggest the gains would be marginal in this particular situation. Test in a medium-low volume store and in a high-ultra volume store, figure the wear-and-tear results will be somewhere toward the middle on average. The vendor will surely be providing a warranty for wiring/reliability issues and the like, so as long as those terms and the price are agreeable... you're good to do.

(And, to be fair, I base this at least in part on my experience that Target, at least for the years I was there, didn't really seem all that interested in doing longevity/durability testing. We spent thousands of dollars buying new lighting systems for the coolers/freezers, for example, that had to have more than half of the lamps replaced within a year. We stick with the crappy zone-free fixtures that break constantly when there are higher-strength systems readily available, etc. etc. )

Those crappy zone free drive me up the walls, but I have to wonder if they're just cheaper in the long run compared to the more robust ones. We're talking about a company that is so stingy, but at least mindful enough (sometimes) to pay upfront for some more expensive stuff because it'll pay off in the long run.

Or maybe it's a case of Hand A doesn't know what the hell Hand B is doing when it comes to fixtures.

 

[commiecorvus]

Or maybe it's a case of Hand A doesn't know what the hell Hand B is doing when it comes to fixtures.

Fixtures and pretty much everything else at Target.

 

[ptl]

[...] it's a case of Hand A doesn't know what the hell Hand B is doing [...]

Fixed that for you. 😉